if no one is standing beside you
by itnevergoesout
Summary: "how many more kids are going to die?" she asks, broken. "depends," bellamy says, careful, "on how the song ends." takes place around 1x07, because that's how far i've gotten. title and lyrics within from the fray's "be still".


my first fic for this fandom. let me know how i'm doing with a review xx

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 _It's not easy being in charge, is it?_

It loops through Clarke's mind in his coarse, matter-of-fact voice, and she continues pacing through the forest, alone.

Nobody needs her right now. Raven'll keep a better eye on Finn than Clarke ever could, and the thought only makes her slightly bitter. The prisoner is still locked up, but she couldn't treat him, even if Bellamy would let her upstairs. The rest of camp is presumably asleep. So she walks through the moonlight of midnight, listens to the slow flap of butterfly wings and the pleasant rustle that is blades of grass dancing in the wind, but still his voice doesn't leave her head. Whatever the hell we want. Give Clarke whatever she needs. It's not easy being in charge, is it?

"You shouldn't be out here by yourself. It's late."

It takes her a moment to realize that this directive is actually spoken aloud. She keeps walking but turns around, catches Bellamy's eye. "Speak for yourself."

He nods, and the faintest hint of a smirk graces his lips. It startles her, that there might be something playful underneath the hotheaded warrior that is Bellamy Blake, and she stops, giving him time to catch up and continue to walk alongside her.

More silence. The ground is wet, and muddy, from the storm, but Clarke is suddenly exhausted, and she sinks down softly, the knees of her pants going dark. Bellamy settles in beside her, leaning against a tree trunk, knife held loosely in his hand. "I don't think I ever thanked you," he begins, voice catching. "For- for what you did for Atom."

Clarke shrugs. "It was the right thing to do," she answers, and it's sterile, and Bellamy has this sudden urge to strip her of the pretense, to let her be 18, and cry in his arms because she took a boy's life. "Don't do that," he would say, voice low. Angry. "You sang to him until he died, Clarke. That isn't nothing."

He doesn't; after all, he barely knows her. But they're going to be leading a bunch of criminal kids, and he needs her on his side. So instead he fiddles with the pocketknife and says, "I've never heard that song before. The one you sang him when-"

Clarke smiles. "It's my favorite. My dad used to sing it to me, when I was little. When I had… nightmares. I sang it a couple times here on the ground with…" Pause. "Charlotte."

"Better than what I did for Charlotte," Bellamy answers, trying to make his voice light. But it comes out haunted, and for the first time Clarke thinks she might be able to forgive him. To work with him. To coax out something softer, every so often.

They'll be partners, but she thinks they could be friends, too.

"It's not your fault," she says, so quietly he can't possibly hear. "You couldn't know."

Bellamy fiddles with a twig while Clarke absently rips a few pieces of grass from the ground and plaits them together. "I saw Octavia," he whispers, looking somewhere off in the distance. "I knew what her demons were, and I knew how to banish them, and I thought I knew Charlotte's too. And I was wrong."

"Is she still scared? Octavia?"

"Sometimes. She was in solitary, which was pretty much her biggest fear. Confinement. Being abandoned. And I thought it might get better here, all this open space and I'm in the tent right next to hers but I hear her screaming in her sleep, every night."

"I'm sorry," Clarke whispers back. "I could- I could bunk with her, if you want. If it'll make her feel safer, I mean. I know some great lullabies."

And Bellamy gives her a real smile, not one of those halfway smirks, and all she can think is _finally,_ and, _when can I make that happen again_. "I'll ask her," he tells Clarke. "But first, I need to approve those lullabies. Can't have my sister listening to just anything."

"It isn't really a lullaby, that song," she stammers, suddenly shy. "My dad just made it one."

Bellamy stretches out on the ground, arms folded under his head. "Fishing for a compliment, Clarke? You have a nice voice. Now sing something."

She never could back down from a challenge. And she's fine, voice clear and sweet. She cracks a little at "when terror falls upon your bed, and sleep no longer comes, remember all the words I said", because it gets really, really high, and Bellamy grants her a lazy grin.

And then her throat closes up, choking, and the smile slips off of Bellamy's face like rain on a windowpane. In slow motion. "It's okay," he says, hoarse. "You don't have to finish."

Clarke looks at him, and he's shaking, because she can't finish. Because she's showing cracks. He's _scared_. "No," she answers, keeping her voice steady. "I'm okay."

 _And when you go through the valley;_

Flashback to twilight, Charlotte flinging herself off a cliff, driven mad by the ghosts she saw.

 _And the shadow comes down from the hill;_

In some other part of this forest, an acid fog eats away at a boy who dies thinking of a dark-haired girl and a lullaby.

 _If morning never comes to be;_

Sunrise, going to fetch water and finding a corpse. Her best friend, dead. Wells.

 _Be still, be still, be still._

Her mind may be a million different places, but her eyes, leaking tears, are on his the whole time she sings. She stops right before the final verse. "How many more kids are going to die?" she asks, broken.

"Depends," Bellamy says, careful, "on how the song ends."

She swallows, breathes long and hard. She'll finish. She always does.

And her voice is rough now, snagged at the edges, but it's sincere. "If you forget the way to go, and lose where you came from, or if no one is standing beside you, be still and know I am."

Bellamy's face is closed off as he stands. "I think," he says, offering Clarke a hand, "we're going to be just fine."

They walk the few minutes back to the dropship in silence, and Clarke suddenly knows that Bellamy will want to pretend this never happened.

And when dawn arrives and prompts a fight, she's right.

She just didn't know it would hurt.


End file.
